Style

Carrying It Forward

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(Jumper Dress: F&F | Leggings: Topshop Tall | Boots: Debenhams | Mittens: Next)

This time last year I wrote about my ‘14 for 2014‘. I’ve never been one for resolutions, but I’d suddenly found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands and it seemed like a good way to organise my spare time into something more productive and enjoyable. So far so good-intentioned…

I started as I meant to go on with Number 1: Blog more – and managed to do this for the first few weeks. Then in March something rather wonderful and unexpected happened… I got a promotion at work. And all of a sudden my spare time started to shrink. So number 1 had to be re-assessed whilst I adjusted to my workload.

A few of the other numbers were also neglected whilst I was enjoying my new role, so this year I’ve decided not to make new resolutions, I’m just going to carry some forward:

1) Blog more
2) Keep a Journal
4) Get back in the saddle and go Horse Riding
5) Dust off the Violin and start playing it again
6) Swim
12) Learn to play Poker (it really can’t be that hard)

2014 was still pretty darn great though. Here are some of the things I did achieve!

Number 3: Read more books. I’m going to post about this soon because it’s something I’ve done with a great deal of enthusiasm.

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Number 7: Bake more. I particularly enjoyed June’s Coconut and Lime Cake:

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Number 8 (Pay it forward. Do more random acts of kindness) was easy to achieve. I started taking my baked goods into work, I fundraised for my favourite causes, and every time I saw a charity box I put any spare change I had into it. I also succeeded with Number 9 & Number 10.

Number 13: See more things at the theatre. I’m so glad I set myself this goal – it’s so lovely to get dressed up and go to the theatre for an evening. Here are some of the shows I’ve enjoyed this year:

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Number 14: Try one new thing, especially if it’s outside your comfort zone (I’m particularly proud of this one) This year I abseiled for the first time – 66 metres! Stepping off the edge was enormously daunting, but ultimately such a rush. As a bonus I also raised a lot of money for my local Mountain Rescue Team.

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Arm Candy

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One of my favourite things about blogging, and following other people’s blogs, is that it opens up a world of style you might never have considered before. I’ve followed Vanessa of Wardrobe Under Construction for a while and I’m always fascinated by her posts because her style is so wonderfully unique and so completely different to my own.

I’ve always felt that my style is fairly ‘classic’, and usually, I feel safer in my style comfort zone. But there’s a growing trend for quirky bags that I can’t ignore… because they are just too damn cute! I spotted them cropping up first on Vanessa’s Instagram but now I find another one to add to my wish list every time I open a magazine. Here’s what it looks like at the moment…

Food Bags

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A Green Thing

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Dress: ASOS | Belt: Oliver Bonas
Tights: tightsplease.co.uk | Boots: Faith

The fashion world goes crazy for fall, but I’ve always been more of a spring/summer girl. I’m learning to love it this year though – and it doesn’t hurt that the sun has stuck around, so I can actually get out and enjoy the scenery as the colours change.

I’ve been spending lots of time with the two critters below – but unlike me they don’t appreciate hot weather. They’re both mountain dogs and they’re much more at home in the cold.

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The Pretty Dress Guide to Packing for a Beach Holiday

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It’s surprising how much goes into packing for a holiday. I’m not one of those people who can just throw a few things in a bag and go, I like to plan.

Lets start with the shoes: One pair of trainers, one pair of nude-goes-with-everything heels, one pair of wedges, one pair of sandals and one pair of flip-flops. I nearly always end up sticking to sandals and flip-flops once I’m there, but I like to know I’ve got all the bases covered.

The easiest and best way to pack shoes is using a plastic carrier bag. I usually line the bottom of my suitcase with shoes and then pack smaller items around them, leaving a relatively flat surface for the clothes to lie on.

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Converse trainers from BrandAlley

The next staple is the little white dress – dressed up with wedges for the evening or down with sandals in the day.

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Dress: Topshop | Wedges: ASOS

I like outfits that can go from day to evening just by changing up the accessories. (Small hard-case clutches are great for hols as you can also use them for transporting jewellery – or anything else that might get damaged in transit). These are also some of my favourite combinations…

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Dress: Zara | Sandals: Oasis | Clutch: Next

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Playsuit: Jovonnista | Shoes: H&M | Clutch: Textile Federation via ASOS

At the beach I prefer light dresses that you can just throw on/off – maxi dresses are great but the best thing I ever bought, I got years ago from Orion. Their kimono dresses are incredibly light and the material doesn’t wrinkle so they can be chucked in your beach bag with no fuss.

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Orion

I love getting out on the water in a boat (motorboat that is… I can’t sail but I like to pretend I can by looking the part) so I’m a big fan of breton stripe tops.

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Top: F&F | Shorts: Warehouse | Sandals: F&F

And lastly: The Bikinis. I live in these things on holiday. You can never have too many right?

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Clockwise from top left: F&F | George | F&F | ASOS | South Beach via ASOS

When In Rome

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I’ve been meaning to do this post for the past 3 months – but every time I sat down to write it I struggled to do justice to this amazing city.

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St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican City
(as seen from the top of Castel Sant’Angelo)

Two years ago I decided I wanted to go to Rome. I bought a guidebook and everything… then I bought my house. All plans for adventure had to be put on hold whilst I spent my time traipsing to solicitors, banks and building merchants. So this year, as a birthday present to myself, I decided to make it happen.

I flew out on my birthday (word to the wise: if you book a flight on your birthday, make sure it isn’t at the crack of dawn – no one remembers it’s your birthday when it’s that early in the morning!) and I got my birthday wish to stand in the Colosseum. Though I quickly learned that I’ve been calling it by the wrong name all my life – it’s proper name is the Flavian Ampitheatre. It got the nickname ‘Colosseum’ from a statue of the god ‘Collosus’ which used to stand outside the entrance. True story.

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The Flavian Ampitheatre (or Roman Colosseum as it’s more commonly known)
When I showed my dad the photo above he thought it had been empty on our visit – but then I pointed out all the people stood around the edges – they’re just so dwarfed by the scale of this amazing place.

Here’s a little tip though: the Colosseum is amazing, but the Imperial Fora is something else. It’s like walking around a film set. There are literally dozens of palaces, temples, buildings and ruins which have accumulated over thousands of years. It’s mind boggling to think they were created by sheer man power alone.

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Wandering the Fora with my sister.

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Skirt & Top: Zara | Sandals: Primark

The most important accessory for Rome is a pair of comfy shoes. There is a metro system but why spend your time underground when there’s so much to discover on each street? We stayed close to the colosseum – in the very lovely Hotel Duca D’Alba. (The hotels near the train station are cheaper but much further away from the historic sights.) All the main tourist attractions were within 30 minutes walk.

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The Trevi Fountain

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The Vatican City

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The Pantheon was by far my favourite building. When we rounded the corner and came face to face with it, the first thing my sister said about it was ‘There should be music playing, like we’re in universal studios or something.’ Standing in front of it, it really does feel like you’ve just walked onto the set of Gladiator or something.

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Rome is full of amazing things to see, but it’s also shopping and food heaven. We neglected the shopping part of our trip a bit, but not so with the food. La Tavernelle, a restaurant around the corner from our hotel, kept us fuelled with pizza, pasta and award-winning Panna Cotta (seriously – you have to try it!) but the thing Rome is most famous for is the gelato.

There’s a gelataria on almost every street but very few places sell the real-deal. Most gelato is made from powder these days but you can taste the difference – look for gelato made with 100% natural ingredients. This place was my favourite – their dark chocolate and orange gelato made me the happiest girl in Rome.

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View of Rome from the Villa Borghese

Longer Length

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Jacket: Zara | Scarf: Purchased at a craft fair | Dress: ASOS
Tights: tightsplease.co.uk | Boots: Debenhams
Unimpressed Cat: Not for Sale

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The tall blogging community recently got very excited when ASOS launched its tall range. A lot of brands associated with ASOS followed suit and there’s now a great range to choose from. Just before the range launched ASOS drip-fed some items into it’s stock and I spotted this longer-length dress – it really is the perfect length for me. Usually I have trouble finding waisted items that sit right with my body proportions – but no such issues with this dress. If you’re 5’10” or over I’d definitely check it out. My cat might not have been too impressed but I was.

 

Butterflies

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When I turned 24, I spent my birthday visiting a castle in Wales, and in the garden they had a butterfly house. It was honestly one of the most magical places I’ve ever stepped inside, the butterflies floated around lazily on soft currents of warm, tropical air and everywhere you looked there was colour, grace and beauty. The image of a butterfly just spells out spring/summer to me – so here are my picks of the best butterfly prints out there.

(Clockwise from bottom left)
Butterfly print dress – Yumi £22.50
Butterfly print top – Oasis £18
Body wash – Anna Sui (via ASOS) £16
Watch – Olivia Burton (via Topshop) £95
Butterfly print scarf – Oasis (via ASOS) £16
Butterfly print cardigan – Warehouse £40
Butterfly mesh top – Anthropologie £68
Scent – Anna Sui (via ASOS) £31

Swift

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It’s no secret that I am a bit of a swiftie. A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to see her live in London. I’d been mooching round the city in the daytime, and had worn the dress below. It being the ‘Red’ tour though, everyone else at the concert was dressed to match the description (and accessorising with fairy lights!) … Anyways I was bemoaning my lack of Taylor-appropriate attire to my sister, when she quite rightly pointed out that I hadn’t missed the boat at all – I was wearing swifts.

So now I love this dress even more. Here’s how I dressed it up recently for a family meal out.

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Dress: Warehouse (Via ASOS) similar here
Tights: tightsplease.co.uk
Shoes: Next
Clutch: Textile Federation via ASOS

And the concert? It was pretty incredible.
Here’s short clip I filmed of Emeli Sande performing ‘Next to Me’ with Taylor Swift.

 

Sixties Shift

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I’ve refined my shopping habits in recent years and most of the things I buy these days tend to fall under the labels ‘classic’ and ‘timeless’. And this fits the bill – in fact when I looked at this photograph I thought ‘if it was in black and white, you might wonder if it had been taken in the sixties’.

The dress is a favourite, it’s heavy fabric – so perfect for winter – but it’s not overly warm for office-wear. And I’ve been enthusing about Charnos tights for ages – as I have quite long legs and these are the only brand I can find that fit me perfectly and don’t slip throughout the day.

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Dress: GAP | Bag: Accessorize
Tights: Tightsplease.co.uk (exact ones here)
Boots: Marta Jonsson at Debenhams

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Bouclé

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Before I sat down to do this post, I didn’t actually know what Bouclé meant. I knew what a Bouclé jacket looked like of course – but not what specifically made it that. Turns out it’s not the cut or the style, but the yarn (or, as Wikipedia called it the ‘novelty yarn’). Anyway the point is, that yarn is a lot warmer than you might expect, I was pretty toasty when taking these photos.

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Jacket: Miss Selfridge (similar here)
Top: F&F (buy it here)
Longer-length Jeggings: Marks and Spencer (indigo)
Boots: Primark
Statement Necklace: via Luan Matthews